


East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and Somewhere on DS9

by sapphose



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29886990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphose/pseuds/sapphose
Summary: Julian and Garak argue about an old Earth folktale, and it might be an argument about something else.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 36
Kudos: 64





	East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and Somewhere on DS9

**Author's Note:**

> Basic details to know here about the folktale East of the Sun, West of the Moon- girl is living in an enchanted castle with a white bear, and every night all the lights go out and a strange man comes to her bed. Her curiosity gets the better of her, with terrible consequences.

The idea behind sharing folktales was the cultural insight. The intention was not to argue, but to better understand the other’s values and mores (at a time when they were trying, very hard, to understand each other).

Julian had underestimated their ability to find something to argue about.

“The ending could have been entirely avoided if she hadn’t lit the candle,” Garak was saying about the most recent offering. “She would have broken the curse and they all would have lived- as you like to say- happily ever after.”

East of the Sun, West of the Moon was a story Julian had no memories of encountering as a child at all, but it was one he had found interesting all the same, especially given the number of variations. The basic shape of the story, the spell making it so the lovers could only be together at night and one could not look upon the other’s face, appeared in multiple Earth cultures.

“I don’t blame her,” Julian staunchly maintained. “I would have done the same thing.”

He was not, perhaps, the most self-aware person on the station, but he knew that he was someone who couldn’t resist the temptation of knowing more.

“It would still have been foolish,” Garak countered.

“But humans are naturally curious! She’d been spending every night with this mysterious man. Maybe she thought she might even love him. Think of all she must have been feeling, the fear and fascination and hope. I can understand why she would want to see him.”

Julian softened his voice at the end, as he watched Garak’s posture straighten, putting another few centimers of distance between them. It was possible he didn’t even realize he was doing so. Garak was also not the most self-aware person on the station.

(What a pair the two of them made.)

“If she was so afraid and unable to let the mystery lie, perhaps she shouldn’t have started sleeping with him in the first place. It seemed a dangerous thing to do anyways.”

In another time and place, Julian might even had made that argument, but he was not about to concede anything now.

“You’ve never slept with someone you didn’t know much about?” Julian teased.

“My dear, I make it a habit to know _everything_ about who I go to bed with.” Garak’s eyes were sharp and probing, and Julian looked down at his hands as if his fingernails were suddenly very interesting.

(There were things Garak did not, could not, know.)

“Lucky for you, some of us like a mystery,” he said, trying to keep his tone light.

“She didn’t, or she would have let him keep his secret.”

A person could be fascinated by a mystery and still want it solved. Sometimes Garak behaved as if he had absolutely no understanding of nuance. He seemed to do it primarily to see if he could bait Julian.

Julian looked up again, locked his eyes on Garak’s own.

“You’re forgetting something important, Garak. He wanted her to know! He must have, or he wouldn’t have brought her there. He was hoping for someone to break his curse.” When Garak didn’t respond immediately, Julian repeated it. “He wanted to be seen. He wanted her to know.”

This time, it was Garak who looked away.

“How sentimental.”

Perhaps it was. But it was also sentimental for Garak to be here in Julian’s bed, in Julian’s quarters, arguing about a human story right after energetically fucking a human in said bed.

Julian wondered which of them, ultimately, might end up being right. If he would pry too much and learn something about Garak that he regretted knowing, or if Garak really did want to someone to know, or if maybe both were true.

He wondered if Garak even knew what Garak wanted.

(They were, after all, both growing into a new kind of self-awareness.)

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about tagging this something like, stories are a prism through which we understand our own experiences, but then that felt pretentious.  
> In the story, the girl's mother convinces her to light a candle to see the strange man, but in doing so she violates one of the provisions of his curse and then has to go rescue him from a troll princess. It's a story I love in all its many variations. Of course, after hardship and questing (and, oddly, doing laundry), the two lovers are reunited. There's comfort in a predictable ending.  
> M_Moonshade wrote a sort of continuation, it's wonderful and you should read it! [A drop of wax](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29895237)  
> And if characters relating fairy tales to their own experiences is your jam, you should also check out my Garak centric fic [Once Upon a Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27712154)


End file.
